Advocates Worry Cuts Will Kill Service Projects

Rita Cole was the oldest of nine children, and dropped out of junior
high school to care for her siblings. She tried an adult-education
class, where others laughed at her when she read aloud. Then a friend
told her about the Family Literacy Corps program.

"I love it here. I'll come this summer if they have it," said Ms.
Cole, who attends a literacy program at Horatio Hacket Elementary
School here. "I know I'll get my degree some day and graduate."

But Maureen Rybnik, her teacher, worries that Ms. Cole's future in
the program will be determined more by politics than by the 45-year-old
woman's dedication.

Ms. Rybnik is an AmeriCorps member, working in Philadelphia's
literacy project under a federal grant. And anyone tuned in to
Washington politics knows that AmeriCorps, President Clinton's
signature national-service initiative, is under fire from conservative
lawmakers.

Some critics argue that AmeriCorps--whose 20,000 members get a $660
monthly living stipend, health-care and child-care benefits, and a
$4,725 education grant for one year of work--discourages "true," unpaid
volunteerism. Others say such service is simply not a federal
concern.

But, if federal funding is choked off, programs like the
Philadelphia Literacy Corps will probably suffocate.

"I think everyone believes this program is the way to go, that it
works," said Ms. Rybnik, a 1994 Harvard University graduate and one of
six AmeriCorps members in the Philadelphia program. "But because of
politics, critics have to blind themselves to the fact that it's
working."

Her class includes a husband and wife who study in the same school
with their children, and a mother and her adult son--both of whom
dropped out of high school.

Karen Young works for the Mayor's Council on Literacy in
Philadelphia and directs the Family Literacy Corps. She said the
$80,000 AmeriCorps grant, along with $25,000 in local contributions,
allowed the council to start five family-education programs for parents
at their children's schools. The curriculum ranges from grammar to
sound eating habits.

"We are in communities without these services, therefore we are
making a dent," Ms. Young argued. "One woman told me she never read
before, now she's picking up a newspaper."

But that "dent" might not be big enough--or come fast enough--to
quiet the critics.

Cuts Pending

House Republicans have passed a 1995 spending-cut bill that would
slash $416 million of $575 million that the Corporation for National
Service has left this fiscal year to run AmeriCorps and the
school-based service program called Learn and Serve America. A
companion Senate bill would cut $210 million. The bills are expected to
go to a conference committee this month.

If those cuts are rejected--or if the President vetoes the
bill--opponents will have another chance as the 1996 budget is
drafted.

Conservative critics have campaigned against the program in the news
media, while the Clinton Administration has sought to portray it as a
cost-effective way to stimulate local community service and lure
private contributions.

"If large numbers of Americans are already volunteering, why should
government create new programs?" said Allyson M. Tucker, who manages
the Center for Educational Law and Policy at the Heritage Foundation, a
conservative think tank in Washington. "AmeriCorps is government
intrusion on working programs."

And Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a
Washington-based libertarian think tank, argued that it is dishonest to
pay someone to do a job and call it service.

"Effectively, this is a jobs program," he said. "There is no reason
to believe that AmeriCorps is not taking resources away from a lot of
other good things."

Sonia Rodriguez-Perez, the principal of James R. Ludlow School in
Philadelphia, disagrees. She tried for a year to get a volunteer to run
an English-as-a-second-language program for Hispanic parents, but it
did not happen until an AmeriCorps member arrived.

"We need to get the word out about AmeriCorps because critics are
always trying to take something away," she said.

Cost Debated

The prospect of losing the Philadelphia program also angers Joan
Burnes, a 23-year-old Syracuse University graduate and AmeriCorps
member who tutors participants in math.

She decried the potential effect of funding cuts "not for me, but
for our learners, who get flooded with six-month programs that are gone
because of someone's whim."

But the AmeriCorps debate revolves around numbers as much as
philosophy.

In an editorial for The Hill, a a newspaper that covers
Congress, Ms. Tucker contended that AmeriCorps members cost taxpayers
about $30,000 each in direct and indirect costs, and that most are from
well-to-do families that do not need financial help.

The Corporation for National Service puts the per-member cost at
$17,600, and estimates the average household income of an AmeriCorps
member at $33,461.

The General Accounting Office, the Congressional investigatory
agency, is expected to review those numbers in an audit next month

According to a G.A.O. official, the per-member cost to the
government could amount to as much as $25,000, because the audit will
count administrative costs of federal agencies that manage AmeriCorps
members, as well as federal grants that states have used as matching
contributions to get AmeriCorps grants.

"The central question is how much taxpayer money this costs," said
Wayne B. Upshaw, the assistant director of the education- and
employment-issue area of the G.A.O. The report will not study program
effectiveness or benefits, he said.

Living With Uncertainty

The Washington debate has trickled down to the state level, where
commissions oversee local AmeriCorps programs.

Lynn Thornton, the executive director of the Georgia Commission on
National and Community Service, says the turmoil has sparked new
interest in AmeriCorps but is forcing her to avoid long-term
promises.

"We don't know how much money we will have or how many programs we
can fund," she said.

Her commission has approved eight AmeriCorps programs, for which it
receives $1.8 million. It also received $180,000 in planning grants,
and the state contributed $180,000.

Ms. Thornton worries that increased uncertainty will deter private
donors who contribute millions of dollars nationwide to various service
programs connected with AmeriCorps.

For example, Nike Inc., the athletic-shoe company, announced last
week that it will give $150,000 in cash grants to AmeriCorps programs.
"They have the people who can go out and help create some really good
things," said a company spokeswoman, Melinda Gable.

Some community-service advocates, meanwhile, have concerns about how
AmeriCorps might affect public perceptions.

Ellen Albee, who sits on the Minnesota Commission on National and
Community Service and manages program development for the Lutheran
Brotherhood, worries that people may see AmeriCorps as representing all
service and volunteerism, possibly overshadowing programs that do not
offer rewards.

"I think young people see AmeriCorps members getting a stipend and
uniforms, and say, 'I want to be one of them,'" said Ms. Albee, who was
in Washington last week to participate in a National Volunteer Week
event.

Still, she stressed that AmeriCorps provides a "solid core of people
you can count on" and argued that federal money can help get programs
started and attract private funds.

And the service community is generally supportive of President
Clinton's idea.

"AmeriCorps is an outstanding program, and we should do what we can
to keep it," said Stella Mendoza, a member of the California Commission
on Improving Life Through Service.

A 'Big Tent'

Supporters say that AmeriCorps should be seen as part of a "big
tent" of volunteers--from parents who read to students one hour a week
to full-time AmeriCorps members.

And if ever that big tent was visible, it was last week, when
AmeriCorps members joined scores of volunteer and service groups in
celebrating National Volunteer Week--and in using the celebration to
try to drum up support for the federal initiative.

President Clinton lauded AmeriCorps members in speeches during the
week, and highlighted individual members at some events on his
agenda.

Matthew Hunter, age 8, kicked off a National Youth Service Day event
in Washington by telling an audience of 800 youths that he reads books
and works on art projects two hours a month at the Meridian Nursing
Center in Randallstown, Md.

Said the Hebbville Elementary School 3rd grader: "You don't have to
be a grown-up to help your community."

"We're trying to get out the basic message that service by youth is
a national treasure," said Roger Landrum, the president of Youth
Service America, a Washington umbrella organization for service groups
and a Youth Service Day co-sponsor along with the Nickelodeon
cable-television network and the Lutheran Brotherhood.

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